This is edition 2026/145 of the Ten@10 newsletter.
Hi all,
This is the Ten@10, where I collate and summarise ten news items you generally won't see in the mainstream media.
Enjoy!
1. RNZ’s Te Reo Policy Dovetails with He Puapua
Graham Adams — Brash & Mitchell
- 📻 Charter “reflect Māori language and culture” amplified into He Puapua 2040 vibe: Māori content in all publicly funded media; reo “flourishing,” bicultural faith articles.
- 📉 Trust 56% in SPE; insiders date slide to heavy-handed Māori word insertion. Babbel “kaitiakitanga most beautiful word” stunt → RNZ booster follow-ups; Olsen-Reeder: should shame government on language policy.
- 📊 Census: ~4% can “hold a conversation” (20.5% of Māori) — self-report, likely inflated. Moon: markets for 18 months, zero conversational reo overheard; false hope from boosterism; no indigenous L2 fully revived anywhere.
- 🎭 Salvation-via-reo features obligatory; never Latin/Homeric Greek amid Odyssey boom; black-armband history (Parihaka hundreds of times; Moriori genocide rarely).
- 🎯 Takeaway: propaganda arm for Māori nationalism — and may be harming revitalisation by pretending it’s already won.
2. National’s List and the Quirks of MMP
Ani O’Brien — Thought Crimes
- 📋 List: Luxon–Willis–Bishop–Brown–Stanford top 5; Brownlee 14→9; Nancy Lu 16; Melissa Lee →30. Real list is Farrar’s “effective list” after safe electorates stripped — and on 31% there may be no list seats.
- 🧮 TU–Curia: Nat 31 / Lab 27.8 / Grn 10.1 / NZF 9.1 / ACT 7.3 / TOP 6.1 → Nat ~40 MPs (was 48). Willis list-only; Bishop Hutt South fragile; Goldsmith vs Seymour in Epsom; Brownlee list-only.
- 🌀 MMP weirdness: more electorate losses = more room for senior list talent. Wish-list drops: Weenink (Banks Peninsula, weak on women’s rights), Kirkpatrick (East Cape). Grigg (Selwyn) untouchable. Want: Kinser Auckland Central; Christmas Tāmaki for ACT (helps Nat list).
- 🎯 Takeaway: not ranking drama — whether any list seats exist. Nat needs more votes, not a new electoral system.
3. Why Are We Waiting?
Peter Allan Williams
- ⚖️ Ngāi Tahu freshwater claim hearing ended 4 Apr 2025 — 16 months, no judgment from Justice Melanie Harland. HC guideline: 90% within 3 months; “outstanding” after 6. Election <3 months; may slip past 7 Nov.
- 💰 1998 settlement $170m + relativity $276m → holdings >$2b; $100m+ from Meridian/Genesis for Waitaki water; preferred Molesworth operator. Claim: rangatiratanga over SI freshwater (minus Nelson/Marlborough bits).
- 🐄 Canterbury: 971k cows, 3.4/ha (NZ avg 2.7), ~17% national dairy land, $28b exports. School nitrate 11.5 mg/L vs WHO 11.3. Ngāi Tahu: 8 dairy farms, 8k cows, 2 ECan seats — plaintiff and player.
- 🎯 Takeaway: whatever Harland decides reshapes SI hydro/irrigation/economy and heads to appeal. Sixteen months is absurd.
4. Staring into the FMA’s Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
Paul McBeth — Jenny Ruth’s Just the Business
- 🪞 FMA forged post-finance-company collapse to rebuild confidence — not remove risk. Investor-confidence survey as success metric peaked 2021, sharp drop since; board pivoted to inward stakeholder self-regard.
- 📈 Mission creep: adviser licensing, conduct, consumer credit → more navel-gazing. No systemic crisis; KiwiSaver literacy better; scams eternal. Savings still property/deposits/KS.
- 🚪 Stobo effectively out; Barrass on gardening leave to Jan; McDonald KC culture review. Miller (founding director, ex-NZX chair) + Janes (NZ RegCo founding chair) appointed — Willis shared credit with Brewer.
- 🎯 Takeaway: success = confident participation in fair markets. Nothing more. Look outward again.
5. The Shame of the Legacy Media Metastasizes
Alex Berenson — Unreported Truths
- 🩺 Hunter to BBC: Joe’s prostate cancer “metastasized into his bones and further… as long as he is alive, he will continue to fight.” Near-term survival in doubt; through Jan 2029 long odds.
- 📰 Whole presidency: hide decline. Post-Hur (“elderly man with poor memory”) media doubled down — NYT 3 a.m. Asia crisis fiction, “sharp and wise.” “Cheapfakes” for true videos; then June 27 debate ended it.
- ⚖️ Without debate, media might have carried him to re-election → unelected Harris after intentional deception, after voters rejected her. Ugly fair fight with Trump > President + press hiding reality.
- 🎯 Takeaway: tragedy for him; would have been tragedy for the country if gaslighting had worked.
6. Fauci’s Legal Defense Has a Fatal Flaw
Jed Rubenfeld — The Free Press
- ⚖️ HSGAC contempt vote for refusing answers. Contempt of Congress = crime (Bannon served 4 months). Fifth Amendment is the usual shield — Rubenfeld: Fauci’s plead may be invalid.
- 🪤 Defence: “perjury trap.” Biden Jan 2025 pardon doesn’t cover post-pardon crimes. Law: Fifth can’t be used merely to dodge perjury risk on non-incriminating testimony. (Full doctrinal case paywalled.)
- 🎯 Takeaway: many experts say he’s clear. Yale con-law professor says they’re wrong.
7. When Publishers Pick Sides
Gerald Posner — The Free Press
- 📚 S&S imprint Washington Square Press reissuing two Susan Abulhawa novels. Posner (three S&S books) not a grudge — principle broke.
- 💬 Post–Oct 7 EI op-ed: praised “brave… freedom fighters,” zero Israeli dead. 2025 X: Israelis “rootless soulless ghouls,” “Jewish supremacist demons,” “cockroach,” “demonic parasites.” Public record.
- ⚖️ Either S&S never checked (gross negligence) or knew and didn’t care. He’ll look for another publisher; hopes others do too. (Full piece paywalled.)
- 🎯 Takeaway: free to publish her — standing by the bile is a choice with consequences.
8. The Ongoing Covid Coverup
Matt Taibbi — Racket News
- 📂 Contempt vote = “stunt” to press; diaries show Fauci 26 Jan 2020: market “not the source, it was the amplifier” — still selling wet market months later while lab questions = conspiracy.
- 📧 Daszak→Shi after Intercept grant FOIA: Bloom’s data request “annoying”; “Please do NOT agree… I will then ignore his requests.” Shi: will comply if contacted. Coordinated block of NIH grant data-sharing — zero legacy coverage.
- 🦇 RaTG13/BtCoV4991 rename games; Lineage 4 cut from published Yu Ping paper; Mojiang mine; Proximal Origin “manipulation is hard.” DRASTIC/Seeker did the load-bearing work pros wouldn’t.
- 🎯 Takeaway: zoonotic case weaker; obfuscation thicker. They’re hiding something; only pressure breaks it.
9. Thoughts for Reducing Child Material Hardship
Bryce Wilkinson — Brash & Mitchell / NZ Initiative
- 📊 MSD 2023–24: child material hardship 13% (0–17) vs EU avg 14%; severe deprivation 5% — 13 of 29 EU countries better, some poorer per capita. Down from peak ~15 years ago, still too high.
- 🔍 High risk: no market income, no liquid assets, sole parent, social housing, Māori/Pacific, disability. Overlap low-income×hardship only ~45% — category ≠ destiny.
- 🧭 Murray “success sequence”: avoid teen pregnancy, finish school, work, marry, kids when affordable. Bad luck still happens. Govt barriers: education quality, unaffordable housing, first-job hurdles, unevaluated welfare; AI cutting bottom ladder rungs.
- 🎯 Takeaway: less hardship needs fewer policy-built obstacles, not just more transfers.
10. Trans Activists Are Still Taking the P*ss
Janet Murray — spiked
- 🚻 UK EHRC single-sex code in force after SC: woman/female = biological sex; providers may exclude men from women’s toilets/changing rooms.
- 🎙️ Coverage: O’Brien no women for women’s-rights case; caller “wet himself” narrative unchallenged (use male or neutral loo). Today: “angry debate” frame. C4: man feels unsafe in men’s, “lovely chats” in ladies — no ask if women objected. Vine ends “muddle through”; guest posts photos from C5 women’s loo: “trans+ woman pissed in your bathroom… nothing happened.”
- 📣 Fogarty: “some facts are just facts.” Dolan rare: “why are single-sex spaces so important to women?” Lived experience treated as unchallengeable authority.
- 🎯 Takeaway: compassion ≠ credulity. Journalists acting as activists deny the full story.
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